Color Me Dead (Henry Park Book 1)

by Trent, Teresa

  “I must have the air conditioning up too high in here. You’re shivering,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “No, I’m fine. Really.”

  “Of course …” he said but then asked once more, “you’re sure you’re all right, now.”

  “Yes.” I turned my back to the window. “This is my first children’s book, so I’m sure I have a lot to learn,” I confessed, changing the subject.

  “We’ll figure it out. I believe creativity only works when you let it flow. Change your mind here and there.”

  I had to agree. I had been a rebel in my art classes, choosing to take what they taught me and bending it to the way I saw things. They might hold the paintbrush, but I held the picture in my head. Getting it from there to the paper was never a process that happened the same way twice. There was no cookie-cutter approach to producing what I imagined.

  “We also run a bookstore in town where my work is, of course, always the main feature. I have a manager for that. We do good business in the summer. People bring their kids to see the home of the Adventure Kids Books, and we happily accept cash or credit cards.”

  “Wow, so you’re all set up.”

  “When you become an international author loved by millions of children, the paperwork can be overwhelming. Especially when you find yourself out there all alone without a New York publisher backing you up. When I first started back in the seventies, the publisher did all of the promotional work. I just sat back and wrote books. It’s not like that today. Now I have to hire the staff that used to be given to me. It’s a changed business.”

  “You’re right. We just drove through town, and so much has changed. I guess change is inevitable.”

  “We’d like to invite you and your brother to a little party we’re having in town tonight. It’s the end of tourist season this week, and the store owners all have a giant party to celebrate. My bookstore is a part of it. As a matter of fact, I’ve invited the manager of our bookstore and his girlfriend, Darla. I think you’ll like her. She’s an artist too. Before you ask, she didn’t want your job. She does mainly landscapes from around here. There’s not a single crooked line in her paintings. She’s a perfectionist, but then again so am I. I know what I’m looking for in an illustration, and her work just wasn’t it.”

  Our first night here and we were going to a party. Not bad. I knew Mitch would be happy to hear that. “Well, it will be great to meet her and your manager.” A boat bouncing across a current in the lake filled the picture window. As the small craft made its way along the shoreline, I felt the chill coming back. I knew I was close. The cold hand was waiting. If the visions kept coming at this pace, it was going to be hard to keep them to myself.

  “The town just started having the official ‘tourists are gone’ party a few years back.” He stopped speaking, and I realized he was watching me look out the window.

  “You’ve got the eye of an artist. I can tell. I think you look out on my lake and see so much more than the ordinary person.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do,” Clarence said. “And I think you do too. What are you seeing, Gabby?”

  I shook off the chill and turned toward the door. “Water … let’s go tell Mitch we’re going to a party.”

  When we arrived back on the porch, Mitch was waking up from a power nap in one of Clarence’s rocking chairs. A dark-blue sedan was coming down Clarence’s circular drive. When he emerged from the car I immediately recognized him as the waiting man from O’Henry’s.

  “We meet again,” he said as the car door slammed behind him like a rimshot.

  “Ryan, I’d like for you to meet my new illustrator, Gabby Wolfe, and her brother, Mitch.”

  “Is he a part of the deal?” Ryan asked, eying my brother.

  “Think of him as an added bonus,” I said.

  Mitch took a sip from his drink and then put his glass on the table. “Moral support, dude.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Ryan,” Clarence apologized. “He has the unholy pleasure of being my business manager and dealing with me day to day. Thank goodness he was smart enough to stay away from writing. That’s a fool’s journey. The real work comes after you write the book. Today’s writers spend a lot of time marketing. That’s his job.”

  Ryan stroked his chin, appraising me. “If this partnership works out, we’ll be working on more books together, but don’t depend on this as a steady income. There could be lag times. I hope you have other streams of income.”

  “You mean like a day job?”

  Ryan scowled. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, unfortunately,” I admitted. I’d need to think about how I could make this work. Being Clarence Bradford’s illustrator was a feather in my cap, and I needed to keep the job. Maybe this would lead to other illustrating jobs. I would worry about how to pay the rent later.

  I turned to Mitch. “Guess what, little brother? We’re going to a party.”

  “Fabulous.” Mitch rose from his porch chair, yawning. “Hello, Henry Park.”

  Chapter 3

  That evening we drove over to a picnic area in Henry Park where Clarence directed us for the party. The little park on the edge of town glistened with white twinkling lights strung from tree to tree. In the center of the grassy area was a sturdy white gazebo that had chairs set up for a band. A makeshift dance floor was laid out next to the gazebo. There were lights and multicolored streamers on all four sides.

  Many long tables were set out with names of businesses taped to the front. Clarence stood when we neared his table marked Enchantment Bookstore. He clapped his hands with joy. “So glad you could come.”

  “Thanks for inviting us, dude,” Mitch responded. Mitch was always ready for a party. I was surprised when he came down the stairs wearing a light-blue button-down shirt and fairly nice jeans. It was refreshing not to have to be constantly staring at his video game T-shirts. He dressed up pretty nicely.

  “How long has the town been doing this?”

  Every year when the tourists left there was a sense of reclaiming the town. Now Henry Park would go into a type of hibernation for the winter. The temperatures would start to drop, and the picturesque little streets would be coated with a sparkling layer of snow. Henry Park in the off-season was an entirely different place. Some of the store owners had houses and businesses in warm-weather states. They were the snowbirds who flew away at the first snowfall. Others would hunker down and open their stores for abbreviated hours. It could be difficult to make the financial windfall of summer traffic last until the spring thaw. The money didn’t always last, and a few “for sale” signs usually went up around February or March.

  “I don’t know how long this party has been going on, I’m just glad we do it.” Clarence gazed across the park at a man walking toward our table. “Here comes our store manager.”

  There was something so familiar about this man who walked with such confidence. His blue eyes met mine as he strolled up to the table. It was one of those moments when after looking into the eyes of a stranger you realize he is not a stranger. I knew this man … intimately.

  “Gabby?” he said as he drew nearer to me.

  I was still searching my memory for where I had met this man before. The low husky voice now joined my other memories of him. I knew that voice from somewhere.

  “Gabby? Is that you?”

  “Yes.” I leaned my head to the side as I stared, and then the memory came flooding back. Not of a man, but of a young teenager. It was a hot summer afternoon in August. I was fifteen years old and found myself being dragged from the town I had grown up in. I was heartbroken because I had to leave my first love, Tim Hudson, a scrawny boy from the basketball team.

  “Tim?”

  “Amazing.”

  I rose from my chair, unsure of what to do. The day we had shared our first kiss, it had been awkward but sweet. I assumed it was his first kiss as well. What should I do? Shake his hand? Hug him? Finally, he ben
t over and kissed me on the cheek like a maiden aunt.

  “I didn’t know you were still here,” I said.

  Clarence stepped forward. “Do you two know each other already?”

  Tim cast me a mischievous glance. “We went to school together.”

  I was thankful he didn’t go any further than that in describing our last meeting. I heard it said once you should always be nice to people because you never know—even when life separates you, you might meet again. I wondered how many people came face to face with the first person they ever kissed? It was such a vulnerable time in my life. Even though I had grown into a woman, there was always that little girl in the back of my thoughts, and today she skipped to the forefront.

  Tim certainly hadn’t lost any of his charms. He pulled up a chair next to me.

  “This is the new illustrator I told you about, but of course, now I find out you met her first,” Clarence said.

  “Sure did.”

  The band started warming up in the gazebo. It consisted of a fiddle, a piano, some percussion, and a saxophone.

  “Looks like we’re going to have music … old school,” Mitch said observing the three middle-aged men and one woman, who could have been a wife or sister, now inhabiting the gazebo. One man stood before the microphone while another jiggled knobs on a board. An ear-splitting squeal went out through the speakers mounted on long skinny poles. Everyone in the crowd covered their ears and grimaced.

  “Testing … testing …”

  “So, where do we get food around here?” Mitch asked.

  Clarence motioned with his hand, “There are food tables on the other side of the park. They’re still setting them up, but you can probably find a plateful.”

  “Later, folks,” Mitch said, reminding me of Luigi, the beagle always in search of his next treat. He headed across the grass with a sense of purpose. Mitch wove his way through the crowd with the agility of a football player on his way to a touchdown in the end zone.

  I asked Tim, “How did you end up as Clarence’s store manager?”

  “I studied business in college with a minor in English. I left for a while, but I missed home. What better job for me than to run a bookstore?”

  “And he does an excellent job,” Clarence added.

  I felt Tim inch a little closer to me, almost to the point of making me feel uncomfortable. His thigh was now touching mine, and his elbow rested close to me on the table.

  There was laughter from a few feet away, and then a blond woman wearing a bright orange bedazzled hat came over. It was another face I immediately recognized. I jumped up from the table. There was no awkwardness this time.

  “Gabby!”

  Maybelline Bonner had been my art teacher in middle school. We embraced in a long hug, rocking each other from side to side.

  “I was hoping you were still here.”

  “I’m here and going strong, my dear girl. You look fantastic. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.”

  “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Are you still doing your art?” Maybelline asked.

  “She sure is,” Clarence interjected from behind us. “She’s my new illustrator.”

  Maybelline’s soft brown eyes lit up. A deep laugh rumbled in her chest. “Well, isn’t that the cat’s pajamas. My little Gabby, star art student, is now working with a world-famous children’s author. This is quite a feather in my cap.” Her soft Georgia accent was like vanilla ice cream on warm peach cobbler.

  It was so wonderful to see Maybelline again. She had been a steadying influence on me when I went through my parent’s divorce. I confided everything to her, from the fights to the night my dad packed his car and drove away. My mother had never been as nurturing as Maybelline had been to me the summer before we left. She not only encouraged my talent but fortified me enough through the bad times to come out of it okay. Why hadn’t I kept up with her? I blamed it on being a typical self-centered adolescent. Even so, our time together had stuck with me.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “We’re renting a house out on Lake Road.”

  “Lake Road? My, my. Mr. Clarence must pay very well.”

  “It isn’t actually on the lake. It’s on the other side of the road.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re there—with all of the burglaries we’ve been having around here. I’m sure the owners were happy to rent that house to you.”

  “It’s a beautiful little house, and it backs up to the woods. You need to come over for dinner one night.” It was hard to believe that we were able to rent the house at the price that we did. Luigi took one look at those woods and went into doggie nirvana. Our new lake rental was so much better than the string of cramped campus housing he had been living in with Mitch. I had taken the bedroom on the main floor, and Mitch claimed the bedroom upstairs. That had given us enough room to be apart from each other when we needed it. We were still brother and sister, and sometimes distance was the best thing for us.

  “So what are you doing now?”

  “Are you still teaching?”

  “I sure am, but not at the school. If you go down to see Mr. Clarence’s bookstore, you’ll see right next to it is probably the finest art gallery in Henry Park.”

  “It’s the only art gallery in Henry Park,” Tim whispered.

  “I am the official owner of the Henry Park Art Gallery and School.”

  “I’m so glad you didn’t give up teaching. You had a gift, and I guess I’m proof.”

  “You sure are. I’m just as proud as can be. How’s your mother?”

  It was the polite thing to say, but Maybelline did not have a lot of love for my mom, especially after the divorce. She saw how it affected Mitch and me and how much we didn’t want to leave the only place we’d ever known. Our parents’ divorce yanked us out of our friendships, including the one I had with my art teacher.

  “She’s fine. Busy with work, you know.”

  “I know.” Maybelline pushed her bottom lip up in a smile. She understood only too well.

  Mitch came back to the table with a plate heaped full of enticing food. He had fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, pork ribs, sausage, and a square of orange Jell-O that wobbled precariously on the edge of his paper plate. Even though his haul of food was impressive, it paled in comparison to the beautiful blond who had followed him to the table.

  Her thin frame was draped by silky straight hair the color of wheat. The delicate bones of her face made me think of a china doll. She lit up upon seeing the assembled group at the table.

  “Hi, Clarence.”

  “Amelia! It’s good to see you out again. Won’t you join us?”

  “I’d love to. I actually felt like going out tonight. It’s been long enough after Billy’s death.”

  Out of all of the people at that buffet, Mitch had probably picked the most interesting. Who was Billy, and how had he died?

  Mitch shuffled into the picnic table bench, placing his plate in front of him and making room for Amelia next to him. “We got to talking in front of the salads, and I invited her to come eat with us. I hope that’s okay.” He noticed Maybelline and then shifted back in his seat.

  “Miss Maybelline?”

  “Mitch! You’re here too? What brings you back to Henry Park? I already know your sister has a job with Clarence, but how did she get you to come along?”

  “She dragged me here. She’s supposed to keep me out of trouble.”

  Maybelline laughed. “She’s got her work cut out for her then. You always were a rascal.”

  Amelia’s plate was a much lighter fare than Mitch’s. She had a green salad, a deviled egg, and a piece of chocolate cake. I had to admit there was something I liked in a woman who ate salad and chocolate cake in the same meal—health-conscious and yet not silly enough to pass up a piece of cake.

  Tim reached across the table and touched Amelia’s hand. “I just wanted to let you know that I have really appreciated what you’ve done at the ho
use. It’s amazing you continued to work through all of this. I know it takes guts to come to a party after what happened to Billy.”

  His gesture was a little over the top, and it was obvious the young woman was becoming uncomfortable with his attentions. Amelia pulled her hand back and folded it under the table. “Thank you. I couldn’t keep myself locked up forever, and as for work, it’s been tough to pay the bills without Billy’s salary. Thank goodness my sister-in-law is letting me stay at her place for a while.”

  There was a rustling behind us as Ryan and an older woman I assumed was his mother crossed the park, holding white plastic bags. “Sorry we’re late, I was busy at the office, and Ryan offered to help me pick up a few things for the potluck. I brought rolls.” She held a bag in the air. She wore a navy-blue pantsuit and blue-and-white pumps. Her frosted hair was styled in a convenient but classy cut.

  Mitch held his roll up in the air. “Never enough rolls. There were only about four dozen there when I left.”

  Clarence rose, “Let me introduce my wife, Elise.”

  “I’m Gabby,” I said extending my hand, “and this is my brother Mitch.”

  “Nice to meet you both!” Elise rustled the bag on her arm and then eyed Tim. “Hello, Tim. Where’s Darla tonight?”

  “Oh, you know. This isn’t really her kind of thing.”

  Ryan nodded. “These events can be tedious. Maybe if there weren’t so many of them she wouldn’t complain.”

  So Tim had a girlfriend who wasn’t in attendance at the town event. How interesting. The band started up playing old standards, and it wasn’t long before the dance floor started filling up. There were a few breaks for speeches, one from the head of the chamber of commerce and one from Henry Park’s mayor, Nancy Farnham.

  “We’ve had a good summer, everybody,” the mayor announced. “Thank you all for working together with the Chamber to unite our efforts for increased sales and exposure.”

  “Not to mention what they brought in from ticketing the tourists at the speed trap just after the hairpin turns on the way up here,” Clarence whispered.

  Because Henry Park was situated so far up the mountain, you had to master the twisting lanes of the landscape to get there—not easy to do while hauling a luxury trailer or on nights when the curves were coated with ice. Once people cleared the turns, they tended to speed up, and that was where they had the opportunity to meet the Henry Park police. I remembered my parents complaining about it, but obviously, they didn’t see it as a steady stream of town revenue like the mayor did.